


Iced Lattes

by cowardnthief



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Artist Luna Lovegood, Asexual Neville Longbottom, Barista Luna Lovegood, Black Hermione Granger, Coffee Shop, F/F, F/M, French Draco Malfoy, Ginny Weasley & Ron Weasley are Twins, Indian Harry Potter, Journalist Ginny Weasley, Lesbian Ginny Weasley, M/M, Muggle AU, Pansexual Luna Lovegood, Rating is pretty much because of swearing, University, University AU, coffee shop AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:27:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22188598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowardnthief/pseuds/cowardnthief
Summary: Ginny just took a gap year backpacking around Europe. When she returns to start her journalism major, she meets part-time barista and fellow student Luna Lovegood who attends the art school nearby. But that's surely not what she should be focusing on, is it? After all, her flatmate and best friend Hermione Granger is adamant that she focus on her studies and not get distracted by the certain blonde who delivers her iced lattes in the morning.(Note: the 'mature' rating is basically just for swearing.)
Relationships: Angelina Johnson/George Weasley, Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Fleur Delacour/Bill Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Lavender Brown/Cormac McLaggen, Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Parvati Patil/Blaise Zabini, Penelope Clearwater/Percy Weasley, Seamus Finnigan/Dean Thomas
Comments: 10
Kudos: 45





	Iced Lattes

**Author's Note:**

> Please just read the tags. It will make this so much easier for both of us.

The air held a gentle breeze, the sun pleasant and warm on the faces of passersby. It would be a lovely day for anyone not hefting a hundred ton backpack on their shoulder. Ginny wasn’t so fortunate, and her shoulders were beginning to ache. She was nearly there, though. Most of her family being away visiting her veterinarian brother, no one was there to pick her up from the train. Instead of wasting what was left of her money on an Uber, she decided to walk a few blocks to her waiting university.

Her phone started ringing, blaring the lyrics of Don’t Threaten Me With A Good Time for the whole street to hear. A few people gave her odd looks, but at that point, her brain didn’t have the neurons left to give two fucks. She took the battered machine out of her pocket and answered it without bothering to check who was calling.

“Yeah?” Ginny said.

“Are you on the train?” a voice answered. Snappish and decidedly feminine. Ginny sighed. Hermione. As much as she loved her friend, she wasn’t all that tactful.

“No, just got off,” she replied. “I’m about two blocks away from uni.”

“Finally, then,” Hermione said. Pause. “Hey, why didn’t you ask me to pick you up?”

Ginny gritted her teeth. She wished she had thought of that, but she wasn’t going to admit it. “I can walk all right.”

“Liar,” Hermione chuckled. “That backpack must be killing your shoulders.”

Ginny sighed. “See you at the gates.”

Ginny was nineteen, same age as Hermione, but her friend was now a year above her in school. The plan had been to graduate high school, go to the same university, rent an apartment together and graduate at the same time, but that didn’t quite work out. It was a whole ordeal which ended with Ginny taking a gap year to travel and Hermione starting her Advanced Maths and Physics degree without her.

The university was in sight - Hogwarts College of Language, Mathematics and Science. Ginny had fallen in love with the place as soon as she had seen it last autumn. The campus was beautiful, with several fountains and gardens scattered around the cobblestone paths. Early that year, she had received a text from Hermione full of observations she had made concerning the geometry of the Hogwarts grounds and the placement of said fountains, gardens and other sites. Most of it went over Ginny’s head and she had said so.

The buildings were made from stone brick, like some Victorian-era castle. Another text from Hermione had informed her that it was, in fact, an old castle that had been restored to become a university. That time, Ginny’s response had been something along the lines of: “Fuck off, Hermione, you’re ruining the illusion.”

As promised, Hermione waited by the gates, sitting on the short stone base on which the fence was perched. She was reading a book - some shit about the theory of quantum physics. Ginny smiled to herself. It had been a whole year since she’d seen her best friend. Honestly, not much had changed. Still the same bushy hair tucked behind her ears, fingers gently curled around the book as if afraid she might break it.

“Oi, Granger,” Ginny called with a smile, dropping her backpack on the ground. Hermione looked up for a moment, confused, but then her face broke into a grin, showing off her front teeth much too large for her mouth. She ran at Ginny and hugged her tightly around the waist. Ginny returned the embrace with just as much enthusiasm.

“Finally,” Hermione said, her voice muffled in the crook of Ginny’s shoulder. Ginny mumbled unintelligibly in assent. Hermione suddenly pulled back, tucking her book safely in her worn leather satchel. “Come on, Lavender and Parvati are at the apartment,” she said. “They can’t wait to see you.”

Ginny’s heart sank a little internally. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were two of the more popular girls in high school, both cheerleaders dating the popular sporty boys - which would have been fine if it hadn’t been for a few certain other altercations she had had with them later in their final year. She hadn’t mentioned any of these incidents to Hermione, who got on all right with the two girls, as it hadn’t been a huge deal and they were all going to graduate and never see each other again anyway. At least that’s what she had thought. When her and Hermione’s plan had fallen through the previous year, Hermione rented a larger flat with Parvati and Lavender, with the intention of Ginny moving in with them the year after.

Anyway, Ginny seriously doubted that they were all that excited to see her.

Despite this, she slung her backpack back onto her shoulder and she and Hermione began the walk to their apartment building.

The neighbourhood was beautiful - the flat itself only a short walk from campus, unlike the one Ginny and Hermione had had their eye on before, which was a half hour drive on a good day and was in about the shittiest, most crime-filled area in the city. Of course, that was because Ginny didn’t have all that much money to offer. With Parvati and Lavender’s added riches (or their families’ riches) the other three girls were able to chip in enough that Ginny only had to pay what she could afford, allowing them to move to a much nicer place.

The building was a brownstone divided into three flats on the corner of two streets fairly empty of cars. Hermione crossed the street to the door and rang the third buzzer next to the door. Lavender’s voice came in crackly and indistinct over the intercom. “Yeah?”

“Ginny’s here,” Hermione said into the speaker. “Buzz us in please?” There was a click and the front door unlocked. Hermione opened it and veered to the left out of habit to climb up the stairs.

Ginny suddenly felt out of place. Everything Hermione was doing seemed so natural, like this was her real home. She supposed it was. This was wrong, though. They were supposed to make the transition together, and suddenly Hermione was so used to her new life that Ginny felt like an intruder. She was beginning to realise just how much of Hermione’s life she had missed when she was travelling.

They continued to walk up the stairs. The walls were a mixture of brownstone and varnished wood shelves with vases of flowers. The decoration was tasteful, Ginny had to admit. The landlord must have spent a decent amount of time on it.

Hermione must have noticed Ginny looking because she answered her thoughts. “Oh, those flowers belong to the landlord, Ms. McGonagall. Sweet old thing. She changes them every week.”

Soon they were at the door of their flat, brown and varnished with a gold-painted number 3 in the centre. “Unlocked, probably,” Hermione said, opening it and stepping in. Ginny followed.

The door opened into the living room, which was of considerable size. Two comfortable looking couches facing each other, a TV against the wall and a glass coffee table in between them. Ginny would have been confused if Hermione hadn’t told her in advance that Lavender’s family provided the furniture.

Lavender was lounging on the couch with her thickheaded boyfriend Cormac McLaggen who she had dated in high school. He was eating salt and vinegar chips, crunching loudly and surely getting crumbs and oil everywhere. Ginny noticed Hermione rolled her eyes and laughed to herself quietly.

“Hey, Lavender,” Ginny said.

Lavender looked up a little, gave Ginny a once-over, and then decided on, “Hey.” Ginny didn’t expect much more.

“Quick tour,” Hermione said quickly, clapping her hands together and breaking the awkward silence. She walked to the right and Ginny followed. “Table, kitchen, and right there is our room.” She gestured to a door squeezed between the kitchen and the wall. “Parvati and Lavender didn’t want the room near the kitchen so they wouldn't ‘get bloated,’” Hermione snorted.

Ginny chimed in. “I don’t think they realise that they actually have to consume food to gain weight.” Ginny was never all that concerned with the whole weight thing. When the thought occasionally crossed her mind, she realised she probably had far more muscle than fat.

Hermione snorted again in response. “You can put your things in there,” she said. “Your bed is the one without any decoration - I figured you’d want to hang your punk band posters or record sleeves above your bed.”

She said it totally deadpan, so Ginny couldn’t figure out whether or not she was being made fun of. “Thanks,” she said without any more tone or expression than Hermione had used. Hermione smirked, and suddenly her expression changed and she looked far more worried.

“You have your books for school, right? I can’t imagine you took them with you all year, but I know you already bought them, and with most of your family in Romania visiting Charlie you have no way of getting into your house…” Ginny laughed lightly. Of course, if Hermione Granger was worried about something, it would be about school.

“Mum gave them to Harry and Ron to take care of before she left,” Ginny reassured her. Hermione was visibly relieved.

“Oh, and that reminds me -” she added, “- your brother and his flatmate your ex-boyfriend do want to see you.” Ginny slapped Hermione’s shoulder lightly and frowned. Of course it wasn’t anything like Hermione made it sound, but her friend did like to tease her about the irony of the situation.

Hermione grinned. “You might want to change, freshen up,” she said, suddenly eyeing Ginny’s sweaty and dirty hoodie distastefully. “We’re meeting at The Three Broomsticks in fifteen minutes.”

“The Three Broomsticks?”

“Local coffee shop,” Hermione clarified. “You better get used to it because I go there every morning so I don’t collapse from exhaustion.”

“Ah,” Ginny said. “Lovely.” Hermione rolled her eyes and turned to leave. “Oi, tell them to bring my books!” Hermione grunted in assent and Ginny turned in the opposite direction, pushing the door of her new room open.

It was blatantly obvious which side of the room was hers. The bed against the far wall, in the corner, was messy, as if whoever had gotten out of it had barely bothered to straighten the blankets. There was a pull-out desk attached to the wall, the kind that didn’t take any space and you could pull out and work on your bed when necessary. The walls all around it were filled with pages of notes and schedules and little neon post-its with things written on them like “don’t forget breakfast” and “drink at least 3 glasses of water, not just coffee.” Above the head of the bed was one of those dry-erase boards with the days of the week on them. Little things were scribbled all over, and Ginny smiled at the large note made in red on Thursday: Ginny arrives!!!

Despite this mess, there was a very clean like down the centre of the room (and Ginny was certain it was measured exactly) and the other side was completely bare, like a blank slate. This is exactly what Ginny expected living with Hermione would be like.

She threw her bag on her bed, not bothering to unpack it yet, instead unzipping it and rummaging through for something decent to wear. Oh, and some deodorant. She smelled like her school cafeteria after the stomach flu epidemic.

Ginny eventually found a relatively clean pair of jeans and a black shirt which she changed into, pulling on her black converse afterwards. She combed her fingers through her hair a few times and pulled it into a high bun, brushing the few strands that fell out across her face behind her ears. Not perfect, but it wasn’t like she needed to look great. And it wasn’t like she was going to look great until she had a shower anyway.

Ginny stepped out of her room, noticing that Parvati had joined Lavender and Cormac on the couches. She was looking at her phone. She looked around and realised that Hermione was nowhere to be found.

“Parvati,” she said, giving a small wave in the direction of the other girl.

“Weasley,” she said, barely looking up. “Hi.”

“Any of you know where Hermione is?” Ginny asked awkwardly.

“Bathroom,” Parvati said, as if she could barely be bothered talking to Ginny. Ginny rolled her eyes and grit her teeth, trying desperately not to be rude, but the way those girls talked to her, as if she was scum, drove her mad. Their words from last year echoed in her mind. The pain…

Just then, Hermione emerged from the bathroom. “Ready then?” she said, grabbing her satchell from a hook by the door and slinging it over her shoulder. Ginny checked her pocket for her phone to make sure it was still there.

“Yep,” she said with a forced smile. “Let’s go.”

~~~

The Three Broomsticks was a quaint little coffee shop, made of brick with those hanging wooden boxes of flowers under the windows and around inside as well. Some weeds and vines grew from the floor and snaked around the walls in the crevices between the bricks. When Hermione opened the door, a bell rang, announcing their arrival.

Ginny’s eyes found Ron’s. He was sitting in a corner at a table by the window with Harry and a boy that Ginny hadn’t met before but clearly recognised. She smiled to herself as she and Hermione wandered over.

Ron stood up immediately and greeted Ginny with a bone crushing hug. “Missed you,” he said. He let go so she could hug Harry just as tightly. Finally, she turned to the last boy at the table, who was standing as if he was waiting to be introduced. His blonde hair was longer on the top, falling messily across his head, but in a way that it was obviously intentional. His grey-blue eyes were framed by subtle but attractive black eyeliner and his features were sharp and angular.

Ginny extended her hand. “Draco? I’ve heard a lot about you. And seen a fair few photos from a certain someone.” She threw a look over at Harry who poked out his tongue and wrapped an arm around Draco’s waist, leaning his head on his shoulder.

Draco shook Ginny’s hand. Suddenly he smirked. “And I suppose you’re the ex-girlfriend?” he quipped. Ginny rolled her eyes amicably as Harry and Hermione started giggling.

“Ah, so I see Harry has told you about our mutual gay awakening?” Ginny said, everyone sitting down. She said it as if it was something particularly sexual, but it was really just a fair few failed attempts at snogging and sex before they came out to each other in the same conversation. Ginny liked to tell that story because of something she had said to Harry: “I think the problem is that I’m more into girls than you are.”

“Eh, bits and pieces,” Draco said, slinging his arm over Harry’s shoulder and allowing him to snuggle further in. Harry kissed Draco’s neck chastely, Draco stroking his hair.

“Jesus! PDA!”

“Like you don’t snog Hermione whenever you get the chance, Ron.”

Ginny stopped paying attention to the conversation because a certain wall had caught her eye. She hadn’t seen it when coming in as it was the same wall that the door was on, but now that she was sitting she had a better vantage point.

Unlike all the other walls, which were painted white, this wall was a giant mural. A painting of a forest, light streaming through the trees, so realistic that if Ginny hadn’t seen the building from the outside she could almost believe the cafe was overlooking the Amazon. She nudged Hermione.

“Who painted that?” she asked, not taking her eyes off the breathtaking artwork.

Hermione looked over. “I think an art student that works here.”

Art student? Fuck that. Whoever painted that should be teaching art. Slowly tearing her eyes away from the mural, Ginny focused on the conversation again. The others were talking about their majors.

“I’m studying advanced physics and mathematics,” said Hermione proudly. It was very well known that she was the smartest person there, mostly because she liked to heavily imply it often. Ginny understood - Hermione had some level of an inferiority complex from growing up in a predominantly white area where the highest marks were always won by skinny, rich white boys. She liked to prove that a chubby black girl could do just as well.

“Yeah, you’ve never mentioned that before,” Ron muttered jokingly, receiving a gentle slap on the shoulder from one irritated Hermione, he smiled, turning back to the group. “I do physical education teaching and coaching.”

“He wants to coach a football team,” Hermione said, clearly just as proud of her boyfriend as she was of herself. Ginny had to smile.

“Yeah, but I’ll probably end up being a PE teacher or something,” Ron shrugged. “Ms Umbridge can take me as her apprentice and teach me the ways of the beep test and making kids insecure about their bodies.” Everyone except for Draco laughed, but of course he wouldn’t understand. Ms Umbridge was their high school PE teacher and most of the school despised her.

“Shut it, you’re brilliant,” Hermione frowned. “You’ll get whatever job you want.”

“I’m training to be an elementary school art teacher,” Harry added after a moment of silence, fiddling with the edge of a napkin. Ginny recalled Harry saying that he would be going to the art school nearby, Beauxbatons, instead of Hogwarts like Ginny, Ron and Hermione. “Art education major. Most of my classes are about education, so on the academic buildings on campus, but I take my art classes over at the artsy side which is where I met this handsome fellow.” At that, he kissed Draco’s nose and his boyfriend smirked in response.

“You go to art school too?” Ginny asked curiously, leaning forward on her elbows and tucking one of her feet under the other leg.

“Yes,” Draco said, “fashion design. It can be a bit of a drag at times. A lot of the professors trying to get you to develop a good taste in clothes as if I my fashion sense wasn’t already better than theirs.”

“Prat,” Harry said affectionately.

“It’s true. Your Stylised Art professor wears sweaters that my great-grandfather wore in the thirties,” Draco sighed. “The best part of the fashion design major is textiles class. You see that blouse your friend Hermione is wearing?” Ginny looked over and noticed that Hermione was wearing a rather attractive white blouse, cuffed at the sleeves with a loose, low hanging collar.

“You made that?” Ginny said, surprised.

“Designed it as well, thank you very much,” Draco said, clearly very pleased with himself. “It was one of my projects from last year.” Ginny simply gaped. “And what about you, Weasley the second? What are you studying?”

Ginny shut her mouth immediately, quickly thinking of something witty to reply with. “Weasley the seventh, actually, but Ginny’s fine,” she quipped with a smirk. “And I’m studying journalism. Feature writing. I want to do human interest stories for the Prophet, about people all around the country. And people who are really struggling, mind you. If I read another article about a skinny, cishet, white person and their daddy issues I’m going to shoot someone.”

Everyone laughed, but the sound was soon cut off. “Have you all decided what to order?” said a high-pitched, feathery soft voice with an irish twang to the words. Ginny glanced up absently, wondering what she would order anyway. The waitress in front of them wore a loose black t-shirt tucked into black jeans - a uniform, Ginny supposed. As her eyes travelled upwards to the girl’s face, she had to do a double take. As opposed to her outfit, which was rather mundane, everything else about this girl was anything but that.

She had soft features and a pale complexion. Her curly blonde hair was cut in a bob just above her shoulders, the ends fading into blue. It looked like she hadn’t gotten a dye job in a while. She wore a bit of makeup - not enough that she looked like an undercooked cake, but definitely a statement. Her lipstick was electric blue and a little bit glossy. She wore eyeshadow of the same colour and silver eyeliner on her upper lid. Around her neck hung a silver chain, and from her ears dangled earrings that looked like shrivelled radishes. Quite clearly homemade, but there was a charm about them. Her eyebrow was pierced with a subtle silver stud. The girl was still looking at her notepad, frowning slightly and repositioning it in her hand. When she finally looked up, Ginny saw that her eyes were large, gentle and inquisitive. Looking into them felt like staring into an endless ocean.

“Yes, I’ll have an espresso, please,” said Hermione, barely glancing up at the waitress. Ginny supposed she was used to seeing her. She was also probably a little more heterosexual than Ginny, who was staring rather pathetically.

“Caramel latte.”

“Mocha, please.”

“Green tea, thank you.”

It was suddenly Ginny’s turn to order, and she’d spend a fair portion of her time looking at the waitress’s eyes. And her hair. It looked rather soft. Wait, what?

“Iced coffee, please,” Ginny blurted out, just going to her default choice.

“Lovely,” the waitress said, scribbling the last order down. “We’ll get that done for you. Just a few minutes…” She trailed off her sentence, walking away into the back of the shop, and Ginny would be lying if she said she hadn’t been watching.

~~~

Luna rushed over to Neville as soon as she stepped out of sight of the table. She grabbed one of the biscuits that he was decorating with little leaf patterns and took a large bite, chewing quickly.

“Hey!” Neville pouted. “I worked hard on that.”

“I don’t suppose Rosmerta will miss it,” Luna said, taking another bite.

“Only because you’re her favourite.”

“Hush,” Luna reprimanded, nudging Neville gently. “I’m panicking, thank you very much, and you are not helping.”

“Okay, who did you see this time?” Neville said, finishing the final leaf on the biscuit he was decorating and gently placed the icing next to the tray. He turned to face Luna, whose mouth was covered in crumbs.

“She’s over there, on the table with those kids who come every day,” Luna said. “And you say it like it happens all the time.”

“Luna, this happens every time you see someone attractive who you claim to be the love of your life. I’ve lost many of my biscuits to your shenanigans,” Neville said, leaning over to peek around the door to see. “The redhead?”

Luna made a sound of assent and Neville leaned back. “Did you see her muscles? I bet she could pick me up. She’s probably really tall too. Do you think she does archery? I feel like she does archery.”

Neville sighed, picking up the icing again and starting on another biscuit. “Again, you do this every time. Luna, you’ll never see her again, and by tomorrow you’ll have forgotten her.”

“Nope,” Luna said, polishing off the biscuit in hand and snatching another, much to Neville’s dismay. “This is different. This is the love of my life.”

“Just because someone has muscles doesn’t make them the love of your life.”

“Okay, but this isn’t muscles, this is girls with muscles, and that’s honestly so much hotter than anyone else with muscles. Besides, my horoscope did say I’d meet someone today.”

Neville sighed. “All right. Fine. Give her your number with the coffee or something.”

“What? No!” Luna said, eyes widening. Neville groaned. “How do I even know if she likes girls?”

“Okay, then wait and hope she comes tomorrow. No matter what you do in terms of the love of your life, something that you definitely should do right now is make the coffees that they ordered. And what did muscle girl order then?”

“Iced coffee,” Luna recited.

“Mmm. A very straight drink.”

“Shut up, that’s a stereotype,” Luna scolded, frowning. “It’s summer, anyway.”

“She has a septum ring!” Luna didn’t reply, instead setting herself to make the drinks. Neville went back to decorating the biscuits.

Once Luna finished each drink (putting more time than she should have into muscle girl’s), she placed them on a black plastic tray to carry them over. She tried very desperately not to look at the girl, even though she could feel her eyes on her. She placed each person’s drink in front of them, saving the redhead for last.

“And the iced coffee,” Luna said, placing the drink down. Before she could think about what she was saying, she blurted something out. “I - uh - I put some whipped cream on it. Thought you might like it.” It was true. The standard drink she made didn’t have whipped cream, yet upon the iced coffee she just delivered sat a perfect spiral. But she regretted saying it immediately. She barely noticed the colour rise in muscle girl’s cheeks.

Just before Luna walked away, she saw a tattoo peeking out from under the girl’s shirt sleeve. She didn’t have time to examine it properly, and even if she did, she doubted she could identify it, as it was mostly covered, but the moment she saw it she was desperate to know what it was. She would figure it out. Someday. Assuming she did see the love of her life again.

She paid more attention to the table where the redheaded girl sat than she cared to admit, and when she stood up and revealed herself to be nearly 6 foot, 5’10 or so, which seemed gigantic to Luna who only stood at 5’4 at best. Luna found herself biting her lip a little as the girl left the shop with her friends, soon gushing to Neville about how muscle girl proved to be tall muscle girl with great ass.

As Luna thought about the mystery girl with the mystery tattoo, she wished desperately that she would come back into the coffee shop another day. As Ginny left the store, thinking about the cute waitress with the blue hair, she promised herself that she would certainly return the following morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for looking at my fic! I wanted to write something fluffy and cute (and a little bit cliche) to enjoy. There's not enough wlw on this website. Anyway, this lowkey started because I was like, I bet Ginny just shitposts in her head 24/7.
> 
> -your local lesbian fic writer.


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